Reviews

Has great dialogs. Based on homonym play by Emilio Carballido, the other main idea behind is the homage Hermosillo makes to cinema mentioning in a grateful gesture names as Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Truffaut and Emilio Fernandez. This homage is kind of biographical, using a young kid which only desire is to become film director. Through him we discover where begins the inspiration of a director to follow his passion.

I saw one problem. Sometimes it looks like theater because of a very static camera, performances of young actors Giovanna Zacarías and Ramiro Guerrero, and the way they say their dialogs. Maybe it is Hermosillo's manner to emphasized the cinema as a fiction, if it is true it's not totally achieved. This sensation of filmed theater grows because the main part (in time and substance) happens in the interior of an apartment.

It is a movie inside another movie, which is a nice detail of director's narrative. Inside, there is a love story, a story of a growing kid becoming a man by following his dreams and a more than symbolic sexual encounter which awake the desire to live. At the end we have a lovely movie, maybe a little difficult to enjoy but filmed by someone in love of cinema.

In Mexico, "La sombra del caudillo" was a prohibited film by government of PRI during decades. It is clearly identify with political corruption under PRI government, specially with the facts of Plutarco Elias Calles presidential period, around 1920s. PRI was the only party in power for seven decades and "La sombra del caudillo" reflects the way they always work.

Fidelity, traitors and of course, the hand of the President, called "el Caudillo", were the forces reigning the political destiny of a nation. Being against "el Caudillo", even in a supposedly clean election, was a risk, no matter how important the person were. "El Caudillo" was over everyone. Here, two Military Generals have the chance to be the next president, but "el Caudillo", not the population will decide.

Julio Bracho, the director, paints the politics world so cruel. For example, the only person capable of loving is destined to died in hands of their traitor friends. But no one is saved. At the end, it is not a classical fight of the good versus the bad candidate. It is simply a fight of two forces, of two generals coming from the same place, they both are the same thing, but (we never know why) one of them will be blessed with the favor of el Caudillo, and the other not.

Acting is great, but the main character, played by Tito Junco, the opposing General, has the majority of the scenes. So, great actors as Ignacio Lopez Tarso or Carlos Lopez Moctezuma are barely notable, and some others, like Roberto Canedo, Noe Nurayama or Antonio Aguilar have almost incidental parts. All of them with important careers in Mexican cinema. The ephemeral presence of el Caudillo is so sordid, and his powerful personality can be fill in the few moments appearing on screen, looking almost omnipotent. We can see him in intimate talks, alone with the opposite General, and still fill his strength.

"Los salvajes" talks about Punishment. The concept is build from a moral perspective, where all the bad acts in life are considered sin and deserve that punishment. But it goes further because also gives a religious perspective, so, there is no need to be a bad person to gain punishments and also sexual desire is a sin.

The acting is great. Pedro Armendáriz plays a character he played many times, a wealthy and hard man, one of many macho stereotypes, taking the woman he likes and doing his will. Also there is a young Carlos Ancira as his younger brother with a mental illness. A tortured Anita Blanch completes the main characters.

Filmed in black and white, the cinematography is gorgeous and the high contrast reveals the deep psychology of this characters, derived from the literary work it is based on.

The language used by Ripstein in "La tía Alejandra" is very simple in almost all the film. There are very few camera movements, almost always direct angles, without music and barely special effects. All this helps to centered the atteintion around the story and the characters, with great acting of Isabela Corona (as Alejandra) and Diana Bracho (as Lucía). Just at the end, when both women struggle it is barely richer.

The identity of Alejandra and the origin of deaths in the house are ambivalent. She can be a real witch or just a eccentric woman pretending to have powers, so the family could be going crazy and misjudging Alejandra... the spectator decides. The boiling water is never seeing while Malena is inside the bath, Martha is not turned into bird, and Lucía keeps hearing Alejandra's corpse, for example.

The old house where everything happens gives a macabre atmosphere. At the end, Lucía is the only real murder, also cruel. In the last part she appears covered with shadows and her dress is black, in opposition, Alejandra appears clear and with direct lights, even after death.

A Mexican psycho-killer film before psycho-killer era... there is a man (maybe a killer) obsessed with his mother, like Psycho (1960)... there is a masked killer hunting women, like those filmed by Mario Bava's giallo in 1960s... but this is a 1950 movie. The script make it a very interesting and tense movie, also Jorge Stahl's cinematography works fine, with some touches of expressionism in the set design and the classical light/shadow use of the film-noir. Arturo De Córdova did a great job, playing a character he did tenths of times, a refined man with a dark side that eventually arise and possesses him completely. Even when Juan Bustillo Oro is barely remembered, this film is a proof of how unfaithful is that poor attention to his work in modern decades.